Sunday, November 04, 2012

IN HONOREM OMNIUM SANTORUM

‘And
I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among
mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples,

and
God himself will be with them.’ (Rev.21:3)

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INTRODUCTION

What
is a saint? Ask the man in the street
and the cynic might reply, ‘someone who’s holier than thou.’ Or, if he knows better, ‘a holy person’. And, technically of course, that’s right for
the word comes from the Latin, ‘sanctus’ which means ‘holy’.

The
problem is that holiness has come to be regarded as something achievable by
only a select few: people who live extraordinarily virtuous lives, leading many
of us to have said, at some point in our lives, ‘well, I’m no saint’. Or,
maybe, ‘of course, she’s no saint!’ But
in the New Testament the word ‘saint’ means all Christians – you and me and all
who seek to be united with Christ.

Two
days ago the Church commemorated all the Holy Souls; those who, as our first reading said, have
gone from us and are at peace; whose hope is of immortality and are waiting to
be disciplined a little for a greater good: union with God. Today as we keep the Solemnity of All Saints
we celebrate all who have gone before us and have attained that union.

Saints,
of course are as varied as impetuous Peter and fiery Paul; repentant Magdalene
and radical John Baptist; practical Teresa and childlike Thérèse. Some are awesome and others ordinary; many
were brave and others fools. Amongst
them you will find, as someone observed, ‘shy artists, and passionate poets …
housewives and kings, taxation experts and lawyers, bakers and brigands.’ Yes, all of us are called to be saints!

WHAT IS A
SAINT?

Some
years ago I found, in the writings of the great American Cistercian, Thomas
Merton, a wonderful reflection on this question of ‘what is a saint?’ and I’d
like to quote it at length. ‘For me’, he said, ‘to be a saint means to be myself.
Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem
of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self.

Trees and
animals have no problem. God makes them
what they are without consulting them, and they are perfectly satisfied.

With us it is
different. God leaves us free to be
whatever we like. We can be ourselves or
not, as we please. We are at liberty to
be real, or to be unreal. We may wear
now one mask and now another, and never, if we so desire, appear with our own
true face.

We are free
beings and (children) of God. We are
called to share with God the work of creating the truth of our identity. … To work out
(that) identity in God…. demands close attention to reality at every
moment. Unless I desire this identity
and work to find it with Him and in Him, the work will never be done.’ (Merton –
‘The Shining Wilderness’)

Those
of you who know that wonderful children’s book, ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’ may
recall how ‘being real’ happens: ‘Real isn’t how you are made’ … ; When
a child loves you for a long, long time – not just to play with, but really
loves you, then you become real’. … It doesn’t happen all at once, … You
become. It takes a long time. That’s why
it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or who have sharp edges, or
who have to be kept carefully.
Generally, by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved
off and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very
shabby. But these things do not matter
at all, except to people who do not understand.’

So
holiness is more about being real than, for example, being good. We can struggle to be good and miss the
point, and the point is to let ourselves be loved by God. The truly holy person doesn’t mind about
themselves. They left all that behind a
long time ago. They mind about letting
themselves go into the unfathomable love of God. That’s what holiness is about. The utter nakedness of being real before
God.

MY JOURNEY
WITH THE SAINTS

Looking
back over my life it seems I can never escape the saints. As a teenager my faith was nurtured at a
church dedicated to All Saints and, later, it was fostered in the great Church
of All Saints, Margaret Street in the West End, where the beauty of worship was
undergirded by priests with tremendous pastoral and preaching skills. Now, when I am not at this church dedicated
to All Saints I am usually at All Saints on Blackheath. And,
between all these places, I have found myself influenced by particular saints:
Benedict, Teresa of Ávila and Francis of Assisi and, later on, by Ignatius
Loyola.

Through
Benedict I was introduced to the importance of developing a rhythm of prayer;
Terese encouraged me through her teaching that the self is like a castle at
whose centre the soul is united with God; Francis drew me by his simplicity and
humility and desire for union with the love of God, and Ignatius by the depth
of his understanding of the soul and the principle that we were created to
‘praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord’.

But
today the emphasis is not on that ‘great multitude … (which) no one could count, from every nation, from all
tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the
Lamb.’ (Rev. 7:9) Our focus is on all those through whom we
catch a glimpse of what God is like and of what we are called to be.

I
remember Lily whom I knew in Nottingham fifty years ago. She had worked all her life as a cleaner and
lived alone in a small flat as she had no family. Many years before she had tested her vocation
as a Religious Sister but her health wasn’t up to the life. She didn’t have enough money for holidays but
would travel in her imagination to all the places she had read of. By the time I knew her she was quite deaf and
almost blind but each day took a bus across the city to Mass. She was one of those ‘thin’ people through
whom the love of God shone and I thank Him for having known her.

Who
is your ‘Lily’ I wonder, and how have their lives impacted yours? What saints have you met? Keep them close; they are your doorways to
heaven.

CONCLUSION

In
the Apostles Creed, recited at Baptism, we affirm belief in the holy Catholic
Church and the communion of saints. Yet
how frequently we forget that, as the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us, ‘we are
surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.’
Many years ago I spent time worshipping at the Serbian Orthodox church
in Birmingham. Like many such churches,
it was covered throughout by frescoes and icons of the saints, all of whom
directed their attention to Christ Pantocrator reigning from the dome. To enter such a place left the worshipper in
no doubt that they had entered heaven.
There one was inspired to ‘lay
aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and …
run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the
pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the
joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has
taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.’ (Heb.12:1ff)

Saints
of God, come to our aid! How easy it is
to call upon them, for they surround us at all times and in all places. One of the most beautiful hymns I know
affirms that:

These stones
that have echoed their praises are holy,
And dear is the ground where their feet have once trod;
Yet here they confessed they were strangers and pilgrims,
And still they were seeking the city of God.

Nine
hundred years ago S. Bernard of Clairvaux, realising this, wrote: ‘Plunge into matter. Plunge into God. By
means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us,
penetrates us and moulds us. We imagine it as distant and inaccessible, whereas
in fact, we live steeped in its burning layers.’

So
as we celebrate All the Saints, known and unknown, we are reminded that
holiness is everywhere and in all people.
Perhaps our prayer today might be that, just as we encounter Christ
beneath the outer form of the Eucharist, bread and wine, so the whole of
creation is a means of encountering God.
And, in particular, the lives of human beings, for all are created in the
image and likeness of God. Each day let
us make the saints our friends and realise their presence with us as we call
upon their prayers. As S. Patrick wrote
in his great hymn:

I arise
today
Through the strength of the love of Cherubim,
In obedience of angels,
In the service of archangels,
In hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In prayers of patriarchs,
In predictions of prophets,
In preaching of apostles,
In faith of confessors,
In innocence of holy virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.
I arise today.

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About Me

I am a priest, spiritual director and accredited pastoral supervisor (Association of Pastoral Supervisors and Educators - APSE) living in south-east London. I also organise pilgrimages to the Holy Land. You can find out more from my website: www.spiritualdirectioninlondon.org.uk